National multi-stakeholder processes and their relation to the IGF

Agenda

The WSIS Plan of Action (para 8b) encourages the development at national level of a structured dialogue involving all relevant stakeholders and the experience of the IGF is beginning to replicate in several countries.

On the basis of a few real-life experiences, this workshop will explore different national initiatives facilitating interaction with the IGF or using multi-stakeholder methods to address national policy choices. It will also provide an opportunity to identify similar initiatives already implemented or under way in other countries. Its purpose is to document, inter alia:

the diversity of frameworks adopted according to the local context, the actors who took the initiative and the challenges encountered;

the purposes of these structures or processes and the corresponding methodologies they have adopted;

their articulation with the global IGF and also the emerging regional ones.

This will hopefully illustrate the benefits of strengthening and enhancing the engagement of all stakeholders in existing and future Internet governance mechanisms, but also allow for exchanges of good practices and the dissemination of useful information to actors who intend to launch similar initiative in their own country or region.

Efforts have been made to gather panelists belonging to the different stakeholder groups and the format will be highly interactive to encourage participants in the workshop to share their own experiences.